JOM Program was distributing school supplies by grade to qualifying families on August 20-21 from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Mother Butler Center. (Photo by Estella Claymore)
RAPID CITY—For the past 15 years, the Johnson O’Malley (JOM) Program has been providing school supplies to the American Indian community during the month of August. This year, the JOM Program was distributing school supplies by grade to qualifying families on August 20-21 from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Mother Butler Center. Rapid City JOM Board President Ida Fast Wolf was helping Janese Monseavk and Carla Sullivan distribute the school supplies this year.
“JOM has been around for about 30 years now,” Fast Horse says. “In addition to school supplies, we also provide sports materials, we pay for SAT, ACT and GED test exams fees, science lab fees, and school fees. Despite having our funding cut, we still manage to do it somehow.”
According to www.bie.edu, The Johnson-O’Malley Program is authorized by the Johnson-O’Malley Act of 1934. This Act authorizes contracts for the education of eligible Indian students enrolled in public schools. This local program is operated under an educational plan, approved by the Bureau of Indian Education, which contains educational objectives to address the needs of the eligible American Indian and Alaska Native students. Eligible applicants are tribal organizations, Indian corporations, school districts or States with eligible American Indian and Alaska Native children attending their schools or public-school districts that have established Indian Education Committees to approve supplementary support programs that benefit American Indian and Alaska Native students. Eligible American Indian and Alaska Native students are enrolled members of a federally recognized tribe or at least one-fourth or more degree of Indian blood descendant of a member of a federally recognized Indian tribal government eligible for services from the Bureau. In addition, eligibility requires these children be between age 3 through grades 12, with priority given to children residing on or near an Indian reservation.
To contact the Rapid City JOM Program, please call (605) 348-6642.
(Contact Estella Claymore at estella.claymore@gmail.com)
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